With the price of oil plunging, the ruble crashing against other currencies, and its interest rates soaring, Russia has announced to the world that it:
…has the right to deploy nuclear weapons in the Crimean peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in March
As Sergei L. Loiko of the Los Angeles Times reports:
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with Interfax news agency. “Now Crimea has become part of a state which possesses such weapons in accordance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
“In accordance with international law,” he added, “Russia has every reason to dispose of its nuclear arsenal … to suit its interests and international legal obligations.”
“In accordance with international law,” he added, “Russia has every reason to dispose of its nuclear arsenal … to suit its interests and international legal obligations.”
How, exactly, Crimea became a part of that state is left to one’s understanding of the way these things work. And that, according to the old Russian standby principle is by … force.
While Russia may be powerless to force the price of oil to rise or its interest rates to go down, there are other applications and it doesn’t appear to be shy about employing them.
